How long did the Mulevala fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2026 and 17 September 2026: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,171 hectares (31.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mulevala (3,187 ha, 1.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mozambique (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

MZ · Mozambique · 2026-09-11 → 2026-09-17

Mulevala fire, September 2026 Mulevala

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2026, 11:06 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2026 in Mulevala, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,171 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 757th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 488 in Mozambique in 2026, of 532.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 3,171ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 11 Sept 2026 – 17 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 11 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 43; in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 261MW; sum of detected power

Play back 17 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high

56km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Mulevala where it started

3,187 ha

1.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
11 Sept	31.0 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
12 Sept	32.0 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 Sept	31.5 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
14 Sept	31.6 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Sept	34.4 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
16 Sept	31.5 °C	30 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Sept	33.8 °C	25 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
18 Sept after	33.8 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Sept after	31.2 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Sept after	30.5 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Sept after	32.0 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Sept after	29.6 °C	48 %	35 km/h	0.4 mm	High 30
23 Sept after	29.4 °C	38 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Sept after	30.7 °C	38 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
25 Sept after	30.4 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
26 Sept after	32.2 °C	35 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
27 Sept after	35.5 °C	26 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 4 Sept 2026

After · 24 Sept 2026

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 19 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1051 µg/m³

Optical depth0.91

WHO 15

91011121314151617181920

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 43Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mulevala fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2026 and 17 September 2026: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,171 hectares (31.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mulevala (3,187 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mozambique (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned